Framing the Past

 

In Becoming and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, the authors both display a self-awareness of the intricacies of memory. Michelle Obama recalls a blurry memory that may seem insignificant, yet it highlights an important moment—one in which she feels temporary freedom from the weight of the future and her goals. She describes a time she found herself running through an open field with her college boyfriend. Even from the first sentence of describing this memory, she begins with questioning her memory: were they in the car already when he asked to go for a drive or on the phone with each other? Did they hold hands or talk on the way there? She can't remember. What she does remember is the way it felt. Whereas, Mary Karr in The Art of Memoir enjoyed inserting little details into her students' recollection of the event in her class, Michelle Obama showed her authenticity by acknowledging her memory isn't perfect.

Jeanette Winterson diverges slightly from the conversational reminiscing style of Michelle Obama. Rather than questioning with the reader how the memory unfolds, Winterson almost challenges the reader to question it themselves. "I have a memory—true or not?" This is how she begins to tell one of the heaviest memories in the story. She is in the garden with her grandpa, a woman appears, Mrs. Winterson argues with this woman. Was it Jeanette's birth mother? Had her birth mother come to find her? She chose an interesting way of framing this childhood memory. Much like how Robert Atwan in Of Memoir and Memory states that childhood memories in autobiographies are often "fragmentary, mysterious, visually enigmatic." It allows the reader to step into the moment and want answers too. In that way, I believe Winterson has found a way of creating for the reader the emotions she once felt.